Bienvenue chez LallianSe !

Innovation by and for caregivers:
from idea to reality

Or how the daily lives of caregivers can also be translated into innovations and benefits for everyone, including the hospital

Context

LallianSe was born 10 years ago from a strong observation: despite France’s scientific and technological excellence, too few medical innovations provide concrete benefits to patients. How can we bridge this persistent gap between research, clinical benefits, and viable business models?

As a healthcare integrator, our mission is to translate these innovations into economic successes. We design and manage tailor-made support programs for inventors, researchers, and ambitious projects. Since our inception, we have supported more than 100 companies by mobilizing a community of 50+ experts, working alongside executives and managers.

This observation has guided all of our actions, including our decision in 2017 to initiate a physical presence within the hospital, at the Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, through the first coworking space for healthcare startups immersed in a hospital environment. This immersion has helped to drive the Innovation Challenge, a mechanism for the emergence, support, and financing of paramedical innovations.

LallianSe has pioneered an original approach to foster innovation directly at the heart of the hospital, by and for caregivers. After four editions of these Innovation Challenges, we are sharing feedback on this hospital immersion. This is an opportunity not only to highlight the wealth of ideas, but also to support the dynamic of co-construction that has enabled the support of these innovators, in close collaboration with the Research Innovation Department (DRI) of the GHU APHP.Sorbonne Université.

Immersion: understanding needs as closely as possible

In 2017, LallianSe decided to establish a physical presence within the hospital. The original idea? To open a space for dialogue between caregivers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. This pilot project enabled:

1. To establish a direct dialogue between startups and healthcare professionals;
2. To better understand the innovation culture of the institution and, more broadly, the University Hospital Group (GHU);
3. To identify decision-makers and innovation stakeholders within the hospital;
4. To bring the original ideas conceived by the winners to fruition, for the benefit of patients and institutions.

Co-construction, as presented below, with the Research and Innovation Department (DRI), represented at this time by Mathilde Lefèvre and Tatiana Akake, former director and deputy director at the launch of the second and third editions of the Innovation Challenge, was a decisive lever. Without this collaboration, and without the trust of the hospital management, the initiative could not have taken root.

“The Innovation Challenges offered the DRI the opportunity to promote new working methods among the GHU’s paramedical teams, drawing on the collaboration with LallianSe. Witnessing the realization of ideas from the field, carried out by passionate and committed professionals, was a professional experience that was both enriching and rewarding. This initiative fully illustrates the capacity of hospitals to think of healthcare innovation that is close to care and aware of daily realities.”

Tatiana Akake, former Deputy Director of Research and Innovation at GHU APHP. Sorbonne Université.

The Challenge Innovation

Two main principles for these Challenges: their project leaders, the paramedics, and the methods – a combination of financing and support.

Healthcare innovation is too rarely driven by paramedical staff. Whether they are nurses, managers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, or laboratory technicians, for example, their daily lives and challenges nonetheless provide a solid source of innovation. Medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare services, innovative solutions—these are all realities and concrete projects that have been imagined, proposed, and some of them brought to fruition. This is what we wanted to promote as a starting point and initiative in order to develop not only a culture of innovation, but also to propose impactful and concrete projects.

The principle of the Challenges? A combination of funding (a grant of €3,000 to €20,000) and strategic and operational support equivalent to approximately €12,000 to €13,000 to give the winning projects the best possible chance of success. The projects were evaluated, analyzed, and, for some editions, prepared by specific coaches and teams—both within the hospital and externally, with privileged partnerships.

How are these competitions financed?

Uniquely, the winning projects were co-financed. The funding was partly provided by the hospital group and partly by profits raised from FestiLAB, an annual charity event organized by LallianSe thanks to the support of patrons from the healthcare innovation ecosystem—entrepreneurs, recruiters, legal advisors, investors, and others.

Finally, the support offered through skills-based sponsorship enabled the various projects to be supported for 6 to 12 months, with monthly working sessions, targeted introductions to key service providers tailored to the project, and specific and relevant networking initiatives based on identified needs. We will have the opportunity to return to these elements in a future article.

Innovation also lies in the way these initiatives are brought to life!

Concretely, how do these competitions take place?

With an optimized schedule spanning several months, these competitions served several objectives:

1. To bring innovation projects led by healthcare providers to fruition and meeting their needs;
2. To bring together the candidate teams, contribute to talent development and increase their attractiveness;
3. To develop a strong identity for the institutions involved, focused on innovation.

To be shortlisted and then apply, projects had to meet three cumulative criteria:

1. Relate to a healthcare innovation (service, treatment, device, etc.);
2. Meet a general need;
3. Be led by paramedical staff.

Each year, the application process was improved. Several design thinking workshops quickly supported the teams, from preselection to project submission, to challenge the concept, improve the quality of the submitted applications, and test the commitment of the teams wishing to apply. By joining this program, the project leader also agreed, in return, to receive training in entrepreneurship and best practices. In addition, additional workshops were added for more advanced projects, including interactions with relevant hospital departments (care coordinators, information systems, administrative staff, research, etc.), thus providing project leaders with a complementary perspective.

At the end of the process, a jury composed of hospital, university, and LallianSe representatives awarded the projects each year with the highest potential for success and dissemination.

A total of seven projects were awarded between 2018 and 2023, across four editions. A dedicated article will highlight these winners and their innovations.

What is the impact of these innovation competitions?

After 4 Innovation Challenges organized and piloted, more than 75 projects received, 7 projects rewarded totaling €57,000 in cumulative prizes and the equivalent of €100,000 in support from LallianSe, here is some feedback:

1. Staff motivation and engagement are crucial. Why not turn this energy into action? Support from management, appropriate recognition (recognition, time), and team training could be avenues to explore. One participant described this experience as “a boost to the development of initiatives; help and support to ensure we don’t give up when the institution struggles to play its catalytic role.” The “snowball” effect observed from one year to the next through a growing number of applications demonstrates the positive influence of these competitions on the spirit of innovation within healthcare institutions.
2. While ideas are essential, their implementation and implementation are crucial. Operational and strategic capabilities, with a 360° vision, are required to make ideas a reality. The selection of service providers, the definition of specifications, the preparation of financing plans, the dialogue with stakeholders, and the anticipation of the resources (human and financial) required to bring the project to life are among the key areas addressed during the support provided.
3. Encouraging the development of skills in project management, entrepreneurship, and innovation, particularly through design thinking workshops and customized training programs included in the competition process, enabled participants to develop or enhance key skills that can be applied in their daily practices, thus fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

This dynamic of innovation, while particularly rich, has also shown its limitations. One of the initial objectives was to prioritize innovation driven by paramedical professionals. It should be noted that in more than 80% of cases, physicians were particularly involved. Can we therefore speak of solely paramedical or medical innovation? Shouldn’t it be better to prioritize the interest of the project itself—and the benefits brought to patients or the healthcare system—over the qualifications of its leader? The debate is open!

Projects necessarily take place over a long period of time, often unrelated to care or even individual objectives or the department concerned; how can these projects therefore be incorporated into the professional careers or daily lives of caregivers?

Furthermore, the institution’s vision and culture are essential for supporting and uniting this type of initiative over the long term, beyond personal experiences. How can it be made visible and understandable to everyone? How can this commitment be incorporated into compatible timeframes for everyone?

Furthermore, dissemination and opening beyond the “original” services where the projects were born require additional resources (and often financial and human), which must be identified and mobilized in a very strong way. Difficult in parallel with a care activity… How to combine one’s care activity with the development of large-scale projects?

“The fertility of the projects, the commitment of all the staff involved, and the vision of better health proposed by the winners of the Innovation Challenge demonstrate and give confidence in the capacity for innovation driven by the “field”. Beyond the innovation itself, we must also anticipate its deployment and expansion, without forgetting its financing.”

Julie Rachline, CEO LallianSe

Conclusion

These editions confirmed a strong conviction: it is essential to create spaces for experimentation and freedom to enable hospital innovation.

For the hospital, these competitions have not only allowed innovation projects to emerge, but also to highlight certain “serial” inventor personnel, a particularly rich and dense dynamic of projects that should be disseminated and highlighted within the framework of specific events. It is also, for the ecosystem that has actively contributed through sponsorship activities – the FestiLAB or the LallianSe skills sponsorship in support – a virtuous circle to better understand the challenges faced by caregivers and their daily lives, to better understand how our health system works and how to make some improvements. This dialogue also allows investors, entrepreneurs, researchers and other committed people to better understand the key success factors for innovative health products. None of this would have been possible without the close collaboration with the Research Innovation Department and the determined support in particular of Mathilde Lefèvre and Tatiana Akake, to bring this dynamic to life.

In the next article, we’ll meet some of the winners to gather their insights on this experience and explore together how field innovation can continue to grow to serve caregivers and patients.